Never a greater need for republican politics, says Adams
Speaking to a gathering of around 500 supporters who attended the launch of his campaign to be elected as a TD for Louth Mr Adams also said that there has “never been a greater need for republican politics”.
At all times he said the core principles of republicanism remain the same. He repeated his party policy that the “banking private debt” should be separated from the “sovereign/exchequer debt”.
During his address to the crowd Mr Adams quoted from James Connolly and also hunger striker Bobby Sands.
He said every generation of republicans had to act “in their own time and in 2011 we act not as they did in 1916”.
He spoke of the importance of every vote in the election and encouraged the crowd to canvass informally.
“Twitter for Irish freedom, text for Sinn Féin,” he suggested.
Outgoing Sinn Féin deputy in Louth, Arthur Morgan, told the crowd that Gerry Adams “is a republican leader, perhaps the most influential since Wolfe Tone”.
He will, Mr Morgan said, “add a huge dynamic to the Dáil,” and could be part of changing the “course of Irish political history”.
Party vice-president Mary Lou McDonald said, Mr Adams “will enter the Dáil with a team of Sinn Féin TDs not to make up the numbers, not to sit on our laurels but to go in and represent the men and women of low income, of no income and of middle income and the men and women of property and of no property”.
She added that: “Our job as republicans is to reach our stated goals: Irish unity, social and economic equality.” She said: “Change is the watch word of this campaign.”
Mr Adams was introduced by Donegal South West deputy Pearse Doherty who said that in the next three weeks “the people of this state have a serious chance to change the direction this country is going in and by god do we need a change of direction”.
“This election is not about faces or political dynasties but what you can offer people on the ground, what you can do for people who are suffering,” he said.
He warned that many people who see Fine Gael and Labour waltz into government will be “deeply, deeply disappointed”.
He said that when the last Fine Gael/Labour coalition left government in 1987 the unemployment rate was at 17% — 4% higher than today.
The Sinn Féin leader went on to say that the debt-to-GDP was 30% higher than today.
